


Pour a Little Salt (We Were Never Here)

by thelittlegreennotebook



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Romantic Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-12
Updated: 2015-03-12
Packaged: 2018-03-17 14:38:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3533084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelittlegreennotebook/pseuds/thelittlegreennotebook
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nightmares don’t just plague the sleeping. This, Oliver knows well.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pour a Little Salt (We Were Never Here)

**Author's Note:**

> Speculation for 3x18. Title from Bon Iver's "Skinny Love."

Oliver Queen knows nightmares.

Nightmares are watching Shado die from a gun that might as well have been his own—that sometimes  _is_  his own in the twisted, mangled darkness of his psyche.

Nightmares are losing Sara on the boat, and again on the island, and again on the rooftop with her frantic screams and stoic silence echoing with equal reverberation in his mind.

Nightmares are replays of his father dying in front of him with vacant eyes and cursed words. Nightmares are his mother dying in front of him, confused and selfless and heroic.

Sometimes (okay,  _often)_  the nightmares throw Thea into the mix, too, just for good measure. Because what the hell, right? Thea, bloodied and broken bodied at the bottom of a cliff. Thea, run through with Slade’s blade. Thea, punctured by a dozen arrows.

Nightmares are the empty, rushing winds around him as he falls endlessly from the mountain.

Nightmares are the _say you never loved me_ ’s and the  _I won’t wait with you_ ’s and the  _I don’t want to be a woman you love_ ’s.

Nightmares are this: watching Felicity’s slumped, defeated form hunched over a hospital bed with Ray Palmer’s hand grasped within her own small, pale fingers.

Nightmares don’t just plague the sleeping. This, Oliver knows well.

The steady beeping of the heart monitor is a taunting rhythm that undermines the severity of Ray’s injuries and laces false hope into the fact that he hasn’t woken up—that he may never wake up.

Oliver knows that if Felicity were facing him, silver tear tracks would be streaked down her face. He can see it in the curve of her shoulders and bow of her head and, God, how perverse is this pain, to love her so much that he wants desperately for Ray to open his eyes?

He’s about to say something—anything (probably the wrong thing), when Roy bursts through the doors behind him. Oliver swivels to face him at the same time as Felicity.

“Crap,” Roy says haltingly, seeing Ray’s prone body for the first time. Digg and Laurel walk calmly through the door behind him, their eyes fixed on the hospital bed as well. “Crap,” Roy says again. His eyes dart from Ray, to Oliver, to Felicity, and then back to Oliver. “What do we do?”

Oliver looks back, and—sure enough—there are tears hanging like rounded icicles off of Felicity’s chin, stemming from tiny rivulets of smeared mascara below her lashes. Her eyes are shimmering crystals behind her glasses, looking lost and anguished and  _goddamn it_ , he can already feel the answer to Roy’s question forming on his lips before he has a chance to think.

Yeah, he’s really going to do this. Of course he’s going to do this. Maybe for the city, maybe to seek justice, but also to get that distraught look off of her face. Just the sight of her red-rimmed eyes and wet cheeks makes his stomach twist into inconceivably painful knots.

“We’re going to find who did this,” he says, finally looking away from her to address the rest of his team.

Digg nods approvingly, Roy squares his shoulders, and Laurel tilts her chin up slightly.

Felicity’s not so prepared nor so permitting.

“What?” she says, and Oliver tries,  _really_  tries—doesn't that count for something?—to ignore the rush of relief that floods through him when she releases Ray’s hand to step towards him. “No—“ she says, clearly trying to gather her scattered thoughts. She runs a hand through her disheveled ponytail. “This guy blew up the mayor’s office. A political building with…with heightened security and everything. That's...you shouldn't...I mean…"

He can see it there on her face, the battle between choosing to find answers for Ray and trying to keep Oliver—the team—safe. She’s in no state to fight it or the guilt that will result from either choice—more importantly, he doesn’t want her to.

“Felicity,” he says, in a tone that normally brooks no argument for pretty much everyone but her. He can sense the other three walking back out through the door, already set on and satisfied with his decision. “We’re going to find out who did this. If not…if not for Ray, then because it’s a serious threat to the city. It’s no more or less dangerous than any other mission.”

“Oliver,” she says, taking another step towards him. Her face tilts to meet his gaze as her eyes flicker over his features searchingly. “You don’t have to do this. All of SCPD is already on it.”

It’s a moot point—if they’ve proved anything in the last three years, it’s that the police force is a crutch at best and an enemy at worst—but he at least lets her get the argument out, no matter how invalid it is.

Oliver regards her silently for a moment, choosing his words carefully. “You care about him,” he says softly. The truth of it is in her eyes, shining out at him with a quiet honesty that so contrasts the normal intensity of her gaze. But it’s there all the same. “And I—"  _care about you._ "And I will find who did this.”

For a moment, when she glances down, it looks like she’s going to reach out and wrap those same small, pale fingers around the hand of his that has curled into a fist. Her fingers reach out tentatively and his almost unclench to reflexively catch them. But at the last second, just when he can feel the graze of her skin against his—just when the beep of the heart monitor seems to screech at them with unprecedented volume, serving as a sharp reminder—her hand shies away and drops unceremoniously to her side.

She looks back up at him, another tear slipping down her cheek. But through her sadness, he can see her resolve.

“Thank you.” The words leave her lips in a whisper, and the sincerity of it reaches into him and curls around his bones in a warm embrace that’s so lacking in the physicality he craves.

He would go to the ends of the earth for her, and the emotion of it is swelling up hot and fast. His lips press together tightly and forcibly curl into a small, sympathetic curve.

“Get some rest,” he tells her in lieu of everything else he wants to say to her—the thousands of things he wants to say—and she nods dutifully, like a promise.

He lets his eyes sweep over her for one more moment before he turns away, leaving her behind, as always, with less than she deserves: the most fragile hope and a million words unspoken.


End file.
